Fatigue and Reliability of Welded Structures

Fatigue durability of structural components depends on geometrical features, material fatigue properties, and service loading. The scatter of the three basic factors affects also the scatter of the fatigue durability of those objects. In order to estimate the scatter of predicted fatigue durability it is necessary to describe in a consistent way the variability of the input data, i.e. the scatter of the geometrical parameters and resulting stress concentration factors and the stress magnitude and distribution in critical regions, the scatter of the material properties, and the scatter of the applied load.

The statistical data, mathematical tools and their practical use leading to the evaluation of fatigue reliability and durability of welded structures in earth moving machinery is the subject of the discussion presented below.